Beyond the Horizon of System Design

Analytical psychology, a sub-area of depth psychology, studies the meaning and form of unconscious universal patterns and its manifestations. Such patterns and their underlying contents (Archetypes) could be integrated in the system design process and its resulting system architecture. I maintain that archetypal system design results in products with deeper emotional substance and thus leads to more commercial success.

Psychologically well-grounded system design based on archetypes would include:

• User story definition with story lines based on internal and archetypal psychological processes
• Target group definition according to archetypal typologies
• Feature design that fulfills collective unconscious demands of our generation
• Definition of system elements in analogy to archetypes

This integration of depth psychology concepts and contents expands system design from a predominantly engineering discipline to a holistic discipline.

Concepts and contents of depth psychology do not only run in the system architecture but also in the work processes that lead to a system. I maintain that a new level of both productivity and product quality is reached if

• the work processes were defined in analogy to the psychology of the system that is developed, and
• unconscious communication was allowed to run in team meetings, creative workshops, and usability tests.

To authenticate these ideas, the methods of depth psychology must be comprehended and integrated. These methods differ fundamentally from those of conventional sciences. Instead of objective observation, the depth psychologist uses subjective experience. He gains access to the unconscious through personal experience and the subsequent scientific reflection of this experience. A system designer who is trained in depth psychology can then let the qualities of related unconscious material influence his practical work.

In my thesis at the Jung Institute in Zurich I introduce how this method, which originally describes processes in psychotherapy, can be applied to system design. I use the design of contents for interactive television as an example.

German version: “Interaktives Fernsehen als moderne Bühne für den Individuationsprozess”

English version: “Interactive Television as a modern stage for the Individuation Process”

A variant of depth psychology, Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority, approaches cultural and societal phenomena from an internal and self-reflecting standpoint. Even technical phenomena such as television, internet, robotics, and artificial intelligence are not seen as being developed by clever entrepreneurs or creative engineers. Rather, they are born out of a newly arisen but not already filled psychological internal space in humankind as a whole. Technologies then express and satisfy such a collective need. This is understood as self sufficient.

Transferred to system design, this notion means that the driving factors are no longer external stakeholder requirements or user expectations but an identified or even only predicted content of the soul. In a system design based on interiority, economic gain and comfort of humans change their status from a superfluous requirement to a substantiated impact with long-term sustainability.

Finding general methods (process definition) as well as concrete applications (product design) under this notion means a big challenge but also an even bigger reward for innovative market participants.